On 13th February, a series of abrupt and unprompted room inspections by the Residence Life Office began in Residence Halls 3 and 4, later spilling over onto other Residence Halls.
The Campus Life Ministry (CLM) has since collected concerns over privacy violations and alleged misuse of the room inspection policies by the Residence Life Office. In an email to the student body on 28th February, the CLM emphasised the lack of justification for the sudden and unprecedented scale of the room inspections.
The Edict spoke with Campus Life Minister Urja Hansraj (ASP '25), CADI (Committee Against Disciplinary Infraction) representative Karandeep Gill (UG’26) and multiple students whose rooms had been inspected.
Alleged Breach of the Policy
According to the Residence Life Office’s policy on room inspections, an authorised personnel may “inspect a student’s allotted room without the consent of and prior notification to the residents under circumstances that indicate danger to the well-being of an individual” or “indicate a violation to national, state, local laws or University regulations.”
To conduct any room inspections, the authorised personnel must obtain a permit from a senior official, usually the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA). In February 2025, DSA Shalini Mehrotra resigned, leaving Shiuli Biswas and Ali Imran to oversee the Residence Life and Student Life Offices in the interim, respectively.
The policy mentions that “all locked and closed spaces such as cupboards, lockers, suitcases” will be opened by the authorised personnel to find “evidence for a purported violation/ reported incident.”
Hansraj met with both Biswas (with the Residence Life Team in attendance) and Imran separately to go over the manner in which the inspections had been conducted.
She mentioned that “no measures should be implemented until the Standing Committee signs off on it.” However, room inspections continued to take place after this conversation and even “got worse,” Hansraj tells The Edict.
The meeting with Imran involved discussions on the basis of the inspections. Hansraj said that there was a lot of back-and-forth regarding the validity and effectiveness of the inspections in terms of clamping down on substance abuse. “I don't think the administration is seeing the situation in the same way we're seeing it,” she said.
Hansraj also told The Edict that in the meeting with Imran, she had provided the administration with a comprehensive list of issues that required attention. In response, they asked her to prioritize their top three concerns. "But the entire system needs to be fixed," she said in response to that. Post this, the CLM decided to send all of their concerns anyway, keeping students in the email loop.
Karandeep Gill (UG '26), CADI Student Representative, mentioned that wardens are required to submit an incident report to CADI detailing the reason for the room inspection and explain if any item violating university policy was found.
This semester, however, “the incident report[s] just start with an ‘inspection was conducted’ in passive voice, that's it.” There is no mention of any particular reason a room was flagged, such as loud music, cross-access hours violations, or the smell of smoke. Gill says room inspections of this nature had never taken place before in his term–-this academic year.
All rooms inspected on 13th February, the CADI committee were informed, constituted cases of “unprompted raid.” The student representatives had also demanded meetings to confirm the cause of the raids before processing them.
“The Residence Life Office told CADI secretary Ashish Kumar Sharma that they would not meet up with the committee if student representatives were present. So the CADI Secretary met Swati Chaudhary [Deputy Director, Residence Life Office] alone,” Gill told The Edict.
Inspections (and beyond)
A student, whose room had been inspected, reported that the warden had made personal comments in the process of inspecting their room about the company they kept, highlighting that they were all ‘of the opposite gender.’ The warden had also allegedly told the student to meet with them every day to report on the activities of other students on their floor.
Students reported to the CLM threats that they received from wardens, which included that of a reduction in financial aid, Hansraj tells The Edict.
The Edict tried to interview wardens, who asked us to reach out to either the Director, Sahana Majumdar or the Deputy Director, Swati Choudhary. Choudhary, in an email correspondence, directed us to Ms Jasrita Dhir, Vice President of Brand and Communications.
Dhir, in turn, asked The Edict to refer our email to Residence Life and added that the “activity is in accordance with Ashoka University’s Residence Life Policy”.
CLM and AUSG’s response
To ensure that student rights and institutional responsibility are upheld, the CLM has put forth six demands to the administration: establishment of a committee chaired by a faculty to approve room inspections, a clear reason provided by the Residence Life team to conduct them, creation of a Grievance Redressal Committee (independent of the Residence Life Team) to address student concerns if policies have been violated, a closure notice if no item against policy is found in a room after inspection, wardens adhering to policy during the inspection and the postponement of an inspection if the occupants of the room are not present or reachable, barring an emergency.
Aditi Warrier, President of the Ashoka University Student Government (AUSG), told The Edict that the manner in which the room inspections are done creates an environment of “mistrust within the residence hall, which is completely unacceptable and counterproductive to everything that the university wants to do for its students,” she added.
The AUSG is opposing the implementation of these designated room inspections. In an email addressed to the student body on 3rd March explaining student rights – they highlight that the room inspection policy is vague and leaves room for misuse. The CLM, through the Standing Committee, is advocating for a dedicated committee of students, faculty, and the administration to redraft it.
(Edited by Madhumitha GI, Keerthana Panchanathan and Srijana Siri)
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